I was in
the boat with other tourists. I was enjoying the view where boat was passing
through a passage between two high lands. Suddenly my friend called, "Hey, come to the other side". The moment I reached other
side of boat, I looked at the scene in front of me and I froze. All I
could see was large blue sky, water falling from fifty feet height covering my
eye site, making so much noise that I could not hear any other sound. Misty fog
was created right in the middle of the fall as if there are clouds forming in
front of my eyes. Water was so violent, I felt like I was in the middle of a
storm. I had never seen anything like
that in my life and the whole experience gave me goose bumps.
That was
my first experience visiting Nayagara falls.
I was never much of a traveler. All the travel I did was visiting
relatives or traveling for study or job purposes. That moment at nayagara
changed my perspective about travel. I made a decision, that I will visit as
many places as I can. Since
then I traveled to over 7-8 countries and visited many cities in India. Each
time I travel, I learn something new. Something about place, people, culture,
food habits, history, more importantly I learn something about myself.
One of
the aspects I struggled with when I visited non-English non-native place is the language barrier.
When I
visited Taiwan, locals didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Taiwanese. Basic
necessities such as food, navigation became a problem. I struggled to find
routes and destinations. I still
remember standing in front of a food stall and looking to eat food. I was very hungry, but, I could not strike a
conversation with shopkeeper to give me food. It was a humbling experience
and I felt like an illiterate trying to
figure out basic things. However, I started enjoying the process in my
subsequent travels.
Another
aspect I look forward to in travel is the random
encounters with people. Interaction with people from different
backgrounds helps me understand different perspectives. Once I was in a flight
from Delhi to Bangalore. It was a 3 hour flight. I started a random
conversation with a person next to me. We spoke at length on various issues
such as generation these days and current telecom and internet situation in
India, what are the causes we are not growing as fast as we should, only to
know in the end that this gentleman is a General manager in BSNL, overseeing
broadband adoption across India. Another time, I helped a lone lady with her
luggage during Mumbai-newyrk flight. We became friends quickly. She is a well
known paediatrician in Newark city. She said, "whenever you come to this
city, don’t forget you know someone here". Whenever I travel, I look
forward to these random encounters and the experience it brings.
Most
important thing about the travel is, I learn something
about life. Once I was traveling back to my hometown. Last
leg was a 4 hour bus journey to reach my village. I was all bogged down with my
worries related to career, office problems, personal problems etc. There was a
couple next to me. Husband, wife and 3 children are happy and they are having
great time during the journey. It suddenly occurred to me that my life is good
in terms of my job, family, friends, health etc. That moment, I learnt from
that unknown family to enjoy every moment and life is not as bad as I often thought it is. I enjoyed my vacation
forgetting whatever problems I thought I had and had good time at home.
Each one
of the travels changed me as a person. Be it enjoying nature, struggling
with basic necessities or having those random encounters. It teaches me how
little I know about the world. It helped me connect with different people and
get different perspectives, and most importantly it helps me find little more about
myself. That feeling drives me to take up next travel where I can expect the
unexpected.
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